Ricoh RR30 Caplio Review

A typical record screen. This is after you half-press and lock the focus, the center AF target turns green (or red if focus fails) and the shutter speed and aperture is displayed on the bottom. Lower left is the zoom lens position. Across the top is Auto flash, there is a Secure Digital card in the slot, the camera icon indicates still image mode, there's space for 137 more pictures, the image size is 2048x1536 in Fine quality, the ISO has been manually selected for ISO 200 and we have adjusted the image sharpness.

Turn the mode dial to the SCENE position to access the six built in scene modes. Choose from Portrait, Sports, Landscape, Nightscape, Text and High Sensitivity. You can see the explanation of each mode in the menu screens above.

The MENU button accesses the still image record options:

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Exposure Compensation - Override metering +/- 2.0EV in 0.3EV steps
White Balance - Auto, Sunny, Overcast, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Custom
Pic Quality/Size - Fine or Normal 2048x1536, Fine or Normal 1280x960, Normal 640x480
Focus - Auto focus, Manual Focus, Snap or Infinity
Continuous Mode - Off, Continuous, S-Continuous, M-Continuous

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Photometry - Metering: Multi, Center-weighted or Spot
ISO Setting - Auto (equiv. ISO 125), ISO 200, 400 or 800
Sharpness - Sharp, Normal, Soft
Auto Bracketing - AutoExposure Bracketing: On or Off
Time Exposure - Long shutter speeds: Off, 1, 2, 4, or 8 secs.

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Interval - Time-lapse 30 min to 3 hour intervals
Date Imprint - Off, Date or Time
Restore Defaults - Reset all parameters to default

The White Balance screen shows you in real-time what the different color temperature settings will produce.

And similarly the exposure compensation option also works in real-time with the screen display showing the effects of overriding the metering.

Manual focus mode lets the user actively change the focus distance using the "Right" and "Left" buttons on the 4-way controller. You can press the OK button to enlarge the screen display for critical focusing.

The RR30 has two unique continuous captures modes; M-Continuous saves the last 16 frames at 8fps when you release the shutter and S-Continuous saves 16 frames in 2 seconds as you push the shutter. Both modes save the captured frames as a single 2048x1536 image.

The Interval recording mode is for time-lapse capture. You can set the time interval of capture anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours.

Ricoh has always had very capable Macro focus modes on their cameras and the RR30 is no exception. In wide angle the minimum focusing distance is an amazing 1cm (0.4 inches.) In telephoto the range is from 16cm (6.3 inches) out to 60cm (23.6 inches.) The flash is useable in Macro mode when using the Telephoto (16cm or greater) distance.

Pressing the DISPLAY button cycles the amount of overlay information on the LCD screen. You can completely clear all of the overlay info or put up these grid lines to aid in the proper framing of your subject.

Movie mode lets you can record up to 30 seconds (per clip) of motion JPEG at 320 x 240 resolution without audio. The lower resolution 160x120 movies can be recorded up to 120 seconds in length. Despite not recording audio the optical zoom cannot be used in movie mode, you can use the digital zoom but expect considerable image degradation if you do.